Australia’s midwifery services are at least 20
years behind those in New Zealand, says Professor Sally
Tracy, an Australian midwife researcher who is the keynote
speaker at this week’s New Zealand College of Midwives’
conference in Auckland.

For the past 10 years Professor
Tracy’s research has been at the forefront of Australian
maternity services, challenging a system resistant to change
at many levels.

“In New Zealand, 78 per cent of women
choose a midwife for their primary care. In Australia that
figure is two per cent,” says Professor Tracy.

In
Australia the Commonwealth government only funds maternity
service payment claims through Medicare for doctors, not
midwives.

“Generally Australian women can only access
midwifery care if they can locate and pay for their own
midwife - one prepared to provide birthing services without
indemnity cover,” she says.

“If we really want to
empower parents to approach childbirth as a healthy life
passage, women and their partners should to be able to
choose a midwife who will provide continuity of care from
when they meet - and knowing that that person will be
standing alongside when they give birth,” says Professor
Tracy.

New Zealand midwifery care is a free service and is
provided to all women.

-ends-

Sally Tracy’s biography
is on the following page. She will be speaking at the
following times during the New Zealand College of Midwives
conference:10.30am Friday 12 September: Promoting normal
birth and the role of evidence

Biography- Graduated with
world’s first professional doctorate in midwifery from the
University of Technology, Sydney, in 2003.- Published
over 50 papers in highly ranked international academic
journals in her field.

- Professor of Women’s Health
Nursing and Midwifery at the Royal Hospital for Women in
Sydney and University of Technology, Sydney.

- Three years
at the National Perinatal Statistics Unit in the Faculty of
Medicine at the University of New South Wales as a post
doctoral research fellow working with the Health Evaluation
Research & Outcomes Network (HERON).

- In 2003 she led the
implementation and evaluation of the first caseload
midwifery group practice to be funded within the public
hospital system in Australia.

- This year obtained a large
Australian National Health and Medical Research Council
grant to undertake a randomised controlled trial of caseload
midwifery care. This study will contribute the first
available controlled trial data on the effect of providing
one to one midwifery care to women during childbirth.
Establishing midwives in a position where they may practice
to their full scope of practice in the Australian Health
System is the passion that drives Sally’s research.

- In
2006 she joined with a group of Australian and New Zealand
midwives to co-author and co-edited the first core midwifery
text written for Australian and New Zealand midwives, which
won the Australian Publisher of the Year Award in its
category in 2007.

- Sally represents the Australian
College of Midwives on the National Core Maternity Indicator
Project funded by the Australian Health Minister Advisory
Council; and the National Consensus Framework for Rural
Maternity Services funded by the Australian Commonwealth
Government.

ALSO:

"Unfortunately we are in crisis and this friendly dinosaur faces extinction… Our only hope is to try and raise funds to buy the building and restore it to its glory, either fully funded or with a viable deposit." More>>

Previously undiscovered letters and a story written by a young Katherine Mansfield were recently unearthed in Wellington City Library’s archives by a local author researching a book about the famous writer. More>>